Hic sunt leones reloaded: Elements for a critique of disciplinary self-(af)filiation within professional white philosophy in South Africa

• Author: Alloggio, S.
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a7
• Published date: 05 September 2022
• Date: 05 September 2022
• Pages: 140-167

140

https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a7

Hic sunt leones reloaded: Elements for

a critique of disciplinary self-(af)liation

within professional white philosophy in

South Africa

SERGIO ALLOGGIO*

The recent inst itutional consol idation of femin ist philosophy, Afric an

and Afr icana phi losophies, sociology of knowledge and decolonial

theory have brought professiona l philosopher s face-to-face with the

repressed side of Wester n philosophy. This essay, drawin g on the

theoretical framework developed in my previous article ‘Hic sunt

leones’, investigates t he role played by professional narcissism and

resistance to histor y in the philosopher’s self-image and imag inar y,

with a particular focus on professional white phi losophy in South

Africa. The pedagogical aspects of philosophical apprenticeship will

be exami ned psychoanalytically, and explored in t heir tran sferential

components. Such a psychoanalytic reading w ill also engage with

current con icts within the South African philosoph ical eld,

promoting a shared space for negotiations. However, without

adequate int rojection of, and progressive identicat ion with, Af rican

philosophers and their work, profe ssional white philosopher s in

South Afr ica run the twofold risk of repl icating regressive for ms of

discipl inary parenthoo d while institut ionalising neocolon ial forms of

academic (af )liations.

* I ndependent schol ar. An earl ier and shor ter version of th is essay for med

the second par t of my paper presentation at the i nternational work shop ‘What -

is Question s and Philo sophy’, hosted from 11 to 13 May 2018 at Rho des

Universit y, Makhand a/Graham stown, Sout h Afric a. I wish to th ank Br yan

Mukand i and Ndumi so Dladla for their crit ical read ings of e arlier vers ions of

the present manuscrip t.

2022 Acta Juridica 140

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ELEME NTS FOR A CRITIQUE OF DISCI PLINARY 141

https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a7

We will conti nue to waver

indecisively before this d ilemma

unless we i nterpret the interest, and

the interests, i nvolved here. Who or

what prots by the credits invested

in the eect iveness of such a system

of metaphor, in such patter ns of

squares a nd denitions of the pawns

in the game, in the attr ibution of

these dierential c riteria to the

pieces of the chessboard, in that

hierarchy of values at stake, ru les, and

reward in the g ame? What that we

should question has been forgotten,

not about a truer t ruth, a realer real,

but about the prot that under-lies the

truth/fantasy pair? And what tribute

is being lev ied to pay for what ha s

been forgotten? as it continues t o

exist at the pr ice of complicat ions

that make t he game more and more

complex, subtle, ver tigi nous and, in

the last an alysis, interm inable. And

it is never in the int erests of any

referee to declare the foul, blow the

whistle.

Luce Irigaray1

But contrar y to expect ation, there

is a form of intellectua l malady

pervad ing the disc ipline, an ins idious

form of menta l servit ude exerted

on the many by a few who a re

among the elit e and working with

a cohort of willing enforcers under

the guise of defending ph ilosophy

and its object ivity—practisi ng it as

religiously as it has been bequeathed

to us. These sl ave masters of today—

in the context of philosophy—have

sought to subord inate and even

supress the th inki ng of those whose

views are d ierent and seen as

radical and unsettling to t he status

quo, if those views happen to go

again st those who, at th is point

in our history, enjoy seemin gly

unpara lleled canon ical stat us. I

raise th is point not so much as

a call to identify t his new breed

of slave masters, but simply a s an

invitat ion to reect on the goings on

partic ularly i n the eld and practice

of African philo sophy.

Pascah Mu ngwi ni2

I INTRODUCTION: PHILOSOPHY’S RESISTANCE

TO (ITS OWN) HISTORY

Modernity, and particularly the last century, inicted two major

narcissistic wounds on the professional philosopher’s self-image.

The rise of natural sciences since the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries, and the subsequent consolidation of social sciences

during the eighteenth and nineteenth centur ies – in other words,

the history of institutional sciences from Galilei to Freud – have

both dethroned and decentred the philosopher and his or her

social role in society. Hegel was the last traditional philosopher

who vigorously tried to reinstate philosophy at the top of the

1 L I rigar ay Speculum of t he Other Woman tr anslate d by GC Gill (1985)

269–70.

2 P Mu ngwi ni ‘Str uggles for self-libe ration in A frican philosophy’ (2 020)

21 Phronimon 1 at 9.

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